When he started shivering and shaking and moaning into her ear she raised the knife and turned it to his throat and pushed it all the way in. Suddenly blood was pouring down onto her face and she felt him pull out of her, heard him groan. She wiped at her eyes with the back of her free hand and his blood was hot on her face. He got off her and she sat up. He was back on his knees and blood was pumping from the hilt of the knife and leaking down his chest and there was semen on her thighs. His hands had gone to his throat and he was trying to pull the knife out. He seemed to be choking there on his knees and he was shaking his head to show that he could not believe she had done this to him.
He pulled the knife out and dropped it in the hay. He turned and put his hands down and he arched his back and coughed out a great gout of blood that ran down his chin and spattered on the hay and soaked quickly away. He looked up at her, a sidelong glance over his shoulder, and then on all fours he began to try and move away from her. He moved very slowly, like a child trying to learn how to crawl, the motions of his body ebbing down. She wished then that she could take it back, undo it somehow, because she knew there was not much time left for him now. When he turned for the last time and looked back at her for just a moment, she heard very clearly what he said. The words were soft and on his face and in his eyes she saw a great regret.
“I'm sorry,” he said, and she believed him.
He eased himself down into the hay and moved onto his side and lay there, and it seemed to her that he was trying to find a comfortable place to rest his head. He breathed a few more times and then he was still. It was quiet once again in the barn. She felt his semen cooling on her
thighs. She pulled herself up slowly, painfully, sat up, wiped her legs off, and shook the hay from her panties and put them on. After a bit she was able to get to her feet, but she was still dizzy from the place on her head. She held on to a post and stood there until she was able to walk over to him. She stood looking down at him for a long time. His eyes were half open and all the light had gone out of them. They saw nothing.
Her hands were still shaking when she buttoned her dress. She found an old mildewed quilt and covered his nakedness so that no part of his body could be seen. She heard a car pull up in the front yard and wondered who it could be. And then she walked out of the barn and back out into her wet yard, under the cloudy sky, trying to find her son.
Puppy's day was nearly done. He was working on his daddy's car when he heard the front door of the trailer open and close. He was bent under the hood, pulling the cover off the timing chain, and he drew back and peered around the side of the car to see who it was. Trudy was coming across the yard toward him and he guessed she was still mad at him, but he hoped she wasn't. He hated it when they fought. It wasn't good for the kids. It made it harder to stay home. It made everything harder. He bent back to his socket wrench and broke another bolt loose, then started taking it out. He didn't want to fight with her anymore, and he felt bad about putting his fist through the door. He knew he needed to spend more time with her, stop staying gone so much. But it wasn't too late to fix that. She was probably upset about him losing his job and everything. Then Glen came along and that didn't help anything. She'd probably get over it pretty quick and it wouldn't be any trouble to take her out to eat sometime, maybe go to the drive-in and watch a movie like they used to. She'd like that.
He was waiting to see what she was going to say when she came around to where he was, smiling a little, and put her hand on his shoulder.
“Hey,” she said.
He glanced up at her. She didn't look mad at all.
“Hey, baby. How you doing?”
“Fine.”
He got the bolt out and put it with the others on top of the breather, then laid the ratchet on the fenderwell. He leaned both hands on the radiator and looked down at the motor. It was leaking some oil from the valve covers and he figured he might as well put some new gaskets on while he was working on it. Save his daddy from having to do it later. It wouldn't take ten minutes. Go ahead and get everything fixed while he had it over here.
“You fixing your daddy's car?” she said. “I know he'll be glad of that.”
“Well, I thought I would. Go ahead and get it runnin for him, take it on over to him when I get it ready. It ain't much wrong with it. He needs his car. I should have done fixed it.”
“I'm glad it quit raining,” she said.
“Yeah, me too. It's faired off right nice.”
She moved a little closer and put her hand on his back and rubbed it slowly.
“You gonna get all dirty,” he said. “I got grease all over me.”
“I don't care. What you want for supper?”
He looked up into her eyes and he saw a soft light there that made him feel better.
“I don't care. Whatever you want to fix'll be fine.”
“I'm sorry about this mornin,” she said. “I didn't mean to be ugly.”
“That's all right. I didn't mean to either.”
She leaned closer and kissed him. Her voice was low and happy when she spoke. “Why don't you come on in the house and take you a long hot bath and I'll fry you some pork chops. I put some beer in the freezer for you.”
Puppy smiled.
“That sounds pretty good,” he said. “Let me just let the hood down on this thing in case it rains again.”
He reached up and lowered the hood over the motor and his tools, pulled it down just short of the latch and left it. She stood there waiting for him.
“I cleaned up the house,” she said.
“Good.”
He walked over to her and she put her hand around his arm and turned with him. A little breeze was stirring and it cooled his sweating back. He was tired from working all day but he felt good. He was glad to be back on his own again. He thought things would work out. People would probably start bringing their cars in when they heard that he was open again.
“I put clean sheets on our bed, too,” she said. “Mama wants the kids to spend the night with her.”
“What'd you tell her?”
“I told her I'd bring em over after while.”
“Why don't we just go out?” he said. “We could go eat some catfish.”
She looked up at him and he smiled at her.
“That sounds good,” she said.
They walked and she kept holding on to his arm. It had been a long time since she'd done that and he was glad she was doing it now.
It was one of those evenings when it clears off just before sundown and you know that the rain is finally gone. The sky is filled with scattered clouds and the last sinking tip of the sun sends light up to brighten the back side of them in hues of orange and pink and the light falls bit by bit until there is only a faint trace of where it has gone before night.
Virgil sat there with David on his lap and they watched it together. The birds had come back out and they lit in the yard and from the porch he pointed out to him mockingbird and sparrow, cardinal and jay. He told him fishing stories and in a little while the boy's eyes closed and Virgil nestled his head with his arm and saw again how the flesh there had wrinkled and sagged. He wanted another smoke but he would not disturb this child to roll it and was content to look down on his face. The puppy dozed beside the chair and he watched the last light fade out of the sky.
Just before full dark he heard cars coming down the road in the mud. They swung in one by one with their parking lights on, and he turned his head to see them getting out. The doors closed and he held his precious bundle a little tighter when he saw who it was. He rocked, watching
them come closer. Bobby was there and Mary and Jewel, and he held David close to him as if to protect him from any harm. He looked at their faces and the old boards creaked softly as he pushed the chair to and fro. When they came near enough to hear him he told them to be quiet, that the boy was asleep.
Published by
ALGONQUIN BOOKS OF CHAPEL HILL
Post Office Box 2225
Chapel Hill, North Carolina 27515-2225
a division of
WORKMAN PUBLISHING
225 Varick Street
New York, New York 10014
© 1996 by Larry Brown.
All rights reserved.
This is a work of fiction. All names, characters, places, and incidents are either products of the author's imagination or are used fictitiously. No reference to any real person is intended or should be inferred.
Grateful acknowledgment is made to
Reckon
magazine, where an excerpt from this novel first appeared.
Library of Congress Cataloging-in-Publication Data is available for a previous edition of this work.
E-book ISBN 978-1-61620-206-4
ESSAYS
On Fire
Billy Ray's Farm
STORIES
Facing the Music
Big Bad Love
NOVELS
Dirty Work
Joe
Fay
The Rabbit Factory
A Miracle of Catfish